Page 18 of Beautiful Sinners

Dierdre…is Alana?

My sister is alive?

What.

The.

Fuck?

I should be happy. I should feel any other joyous emotion other than the knife that twists inside my gut, killing me a thousand times over.

Because at that moment, I realize with a jolting clarity—it’s not just my father who betrayed me.

Dierdre is Alana. Syn’s mom. The woman who has spent the last ten years taking care of Syn in Dilli-fucking-wyll, Virginia on a farm raising chickens. She had Syn. And she never tried to contact me. She let me believe she was dead. She kept Aoife from us. The sister I loved, and adored, andgrievedis nothing more than a duplicitous liar. Just like our father.

“Tristan, I haven’t been able to contact her. I think something happened to her.”

I slice an accusatory look Cillian’s way. Is that who he was referring to a minute ago?

Not smug anymore, and without me having to ask, he nods.

What the hell is going on?

Not able to bear being touched right now, I push Syn off me as the ground underneath my feet shifts when the weight of the truth pounds inside my skull. Every memory, every tear I shed, every goddamn word I spoke to the heavenly stars, hoping Dierdre would hear them, rushes forward like a torrent and crashes into me. Like with Aoife, I’d spent the last ten years believing Dierdre was dead, mourning her loss, hating our father, and plotting revenge. The grief that has been my burden for a decade because I thought I failed her morphs into a volatile blend of anguish and fury.

My entire life has been crafted by lies. I mourned and grieved for nothing.

“Tristan.”

No. I shut everyone out. I’m suffocating. I need air. I need to be alone. I need to hurt something.

“Tristan, wait!” Syn pleads.

Crashing through the foyer in my attempts to get to the front door, I pass a shocked Hendrix at the bottom of the stairs and shove a guard out of my way when he tries to block my path. I practically shred the hinges from the door when I throw it wide open and disappear into the night.

CHAPTER 6

Self-loathing hurls a red-hot poker through my chest as I helplessly watch Tristan walk out the front door.

What is wrong with me? How could I look at Alana for ten years and not see who she really was?Ten years. Shame coats my skin like a thick, sticky tar. Papa would be so ashamed of me. For burying who I was. I hid like a coward, shoving my life so far down the rabbit hole of my subconscious that I became a different person who was happy to live a lie as long as I could forget my past. And I hate myself for being so weak.

When I go to follow Tristan, ready to throw myself at his feet and beg his forgiveness, Hendrix snatches my wrist and wraps me in his arms. I don’t deserve his comfort. I don’t deserve their devotion. I have brought nothing but chaos and destruction. I’m the cause of all the awful shit in their lives.

“Just give him a minute to fall apart,” Hendrix says as he holds me.

My fingernails embed in the hard muscles of his back as I cling to him. I know I just said that I didn’t deserve his comfort; I take it anyway.

Con appears over Hendrix’s shoulder, but I struggle to look directly at him, so I stare at his chin, not able to meet his dark irises that have the ability to see everything.

“Are you sure it’s her?”

I wish I wasn’t. I wish that part of my memory stayed forever locked away from me. But that would be cruel, too. Tristan deserves to know his sister is still alive. That she’s a beautiful grown woman with a beautiful soul who loved me unconditionally and treated me wonderfully for unknown reasons. I barely knew her when I was little since she was so much older than me. Which makes me frown as question upon question builds a mountain inside my mind. How did she know who I was? How did she find me at the hospital? My first recollection afterthat nightwas waking up in a white-washed room in so much pain, and she was there, holding my hand, telling me everything was going to be okay.

But why would Alana lie? Why would she pretend to be someone else? Why would she hurt Tristan like that?

You did, you stupid bitch. Hypocrite much?

“I’m sure.”

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